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In the cottage Beth showed Carver a soaked and ink-smeared paper she’d brought with her on the swim back. It was illegible now, but she told him the room she’d spent so much time in was an office, and the paper was an unsigned letter insisting that “the cargo had to be shipped, whatever the danger.”

Might the letter have been a plant, part of an elaborate scheme to set him up?

He doubted it. There was no way for Rainer to be sure the house would be broken into, and the alarm Beth had neutralized would have activated the sound and light show that had driven Carver away on his first visit to the Rainer estate.

He and Beth decided they should proceed on the premise that Rainer had been compelled to load the
Miss Behavin’
and put to sea.

Carver limped into the bathroom and got a towel, but Beth asked him not to dry himself. She wanted to make love wet. He was exhausted but he understood her need. Shared it. They’d been flying on fear and excitement, and it wasn’t so easy to land.

Adrenaline took over.

At breakfast Beth said, “Some night, huh?”

“On which shore?” Carver asked.

She stirred her coffee. “Why wouldn’t Rainer just put to sea during the day? You figure he doesn’t want anybody being able to swear when or how long the boat’s been gone?”

The morning hadn’t heated up yet, and Henry’s kitchen window was open. There was a breeze, the ancient-new scent of the sea pressing in. Carver took a sip of coffee. Yech! It was in a ceramic mug with a yellow smiley face on it, but it tasted like the coffee from the thermos bottle and didn’t appeal to him. He hadn’t slept well after last night. He was suddenly sick of Walter Rainer and all the Walter Rainers and the people who sucked up to them and even the people who merely tolerated them. Sometimes he wondered what it would be like to swim far, far out to sea, join Henry Tiller. He admonished himself; he hadn’t been haunted by thoughts like that for a long time. Not since he’d been with Edwina. Hadn’t allowed it.

“Fred?”

“I figure it’s more than the boat coming and going,” he said. “He also doesn’t want anyone seeing him load or unload those crates, doesn’t ever wanna have to explain them. He’s got to know that at any given moment he might be under surveillance. But like the letter said, time was beginning to run out on some kinda deal, so he had to take a chance. If we did happen to be watching, we’d only know crates were taken aboard in the dead of night to ferry
something
somewhere.”

“Not hard to figure what that something is, though,” Beth said. She calmly buttered her toast. The cut on her forehead still looked nasty, almost luminous, but her bruised cheek was much better. She healed fast. “Maybe you better talk to Chief Wicke.”

“No,” Carver said, “not Wicke.”

Beth gave him a smile as she laid her knife across the edge of her plate. “Now you’re beginning to understand the drug trade, Fred.”

He said nothing. Took a bite of toast and chewed thoughtfully.

“What’re you thinking?” she asked.

“Wondering where you got this coffee mug with the smiley face on it.”

“Back of the cabinet over the sink.”

“I never did like this beaming little bastard. I was hoping I’d about seen the last of him.” He rotated the mug on the table and saw that its glaze was finely checked. A survivor from the seventies, Carver thought.

Beth said, “The Coast Guard’ll be able to intercept that boat on its way back from Mexico, if that’s where it’s going. It’s like Rainer himself, built for luxury, not speed.”

“There’s plenty of time,” Carver agreed. “An intercept’s what I was actually sitting here considering. The idea grows on me.”

“Wicke won’t like it, you going over his head,” Beth said, “but some things you gotta do.”

That was for sure.

“Think the DEA or Coast Guard’ll listen to you?” Beth asked.

“No, but they’ll listen to Desoto, or whoever Desoto gets to contact them and request a search at sea.”

“Desoto’ll be sticking his neck out. Will he do that for you?”

“He’ll do it.” Which Carver knew was true; the thing was, he hated to ask Desoto to do it. But he remembered seeing Davy wheeling those big lightweight crates on board the
Miss Behavin’.
Being careful with them. Under cover of darkness. Secretly as possible.

“You could tell them about the letter.”

“Right,” Carver said, “and trespassing and burglary.”

“It was only a thought. What if they stop the boat and don’t find anything incriminating on board?”

“Then the letter meant nothing and Rainer will have made chumps of us, and his innocent act’ll be that much more convincing. He’ll be all the harder to nail. But I think something’ll be in those crates. And if the crates themselves aren’t on board during an interception and search at sea, Rainer’s explanation’ll be interesting.”

“To you, but maybe not to the DEA or Coast Guard. Rainer wouldn’t have to explain where he left the crates or why. You’re the only one saw them being loaded.”

Carver sipped his bitter coffee. “Well, there’s some satisfaction in making Rainer jettison valuable cargo, and maybe having to chance going out later and trying to retrieve it.”

“That what you’re looking for in this, Fred? Satisfaction?”

“Of one kind or another,” Carver said.

“I figured,” Beth said. “I sure as hell knew it wasn’t money.” She sank her even white teeth into her buttered toast.

Carver shoved his smiley mug away and stood up. He limped to the phone and called Desoto.

He was playing on the edge again.

And liking it.

T
HE
MISS BEHAVIN’
didn’t return that night, but just before midnight the next night it slipped like a dark illusion along the coast and docked at the foot of the Rainer estate. Hector had been expecting it. Through the night glasses, Carver watched as he fastened lines and stood waiting as Walter Rainer made his way up on deck. With his good arm Hector helped Rainer across the short gangplank and onto land. Rainer remained supported by Hector for a few minutes while he became accustomed to being motionless. They waited for Davy, who shut down the boat’s systems and then hopped nimbly onto the dock.

Rainer and the two men stood for about five minutes talking, then, with Rainer leading the way, they walked from sight in the direction of the house. The
Miss Behavin’
lay dark at her moorings.

Carver decided nothing more was likely to happen within his view that night, so he left the blind and returned to the cottage. It was a pleasure to get away from the flitting, biting insects that seemed to find him irresistible despite the bug repellent he’d sprayed on himself before taking up position among the branches. Florida insects were survivors; maybe in a few short days they had become immune to and then learned to love the stuff, become insect drug addicts.

After a quick shower to wash the camphor scent of the repellent from his skin, he went to bed and fell asleep listening to Beth’s deep and even breathing.

At eight the next morning he was drawn from sleep by gunfire. He contorted his arm to grip the headboard so he could sit up in bed, coming all the way awake.

No, not gunfire, only a knocking, on the door.

Beth, also awake, raised her head and looked sloe-eyed and sleepily over at him. “Gonna get that, Fred?”

Carver figured it was a rhetorical question, since her head dropped back onto her pillow and her eyes closed.

Without answering her, he found his cane and struggled out of bed and into his pants, limped shirtless and barefoot to the front door. Through the small window of the door, the shape of a man banging on the porch screen door was visible. Carver thumped across the porch, and the man stood with his hands at his sides, waiting while the door was unlatched and opened. Still without moving, he said, “Fred Carver?”

Carver admitted he was, then stepped outside and stood barefoot in the sun’s warmth. The breeze off the sea was still cool and felt good on his perspiring chest.

“I’m agent Rodney Martinson, with the Drug Enforcement Administration.” He flashed ID and extended his free hand, squinting at Carver with something like a smile.

Carver shook hands, thinking he might as well invite Martinson into the shade. “Wanna come up on the porch?”

“Pleasant enough out here, if it’s okay with you,” Martinson said. He was a medium-height, paunchy man with thinning hair in a short military cut, in his thirties, unremarkable except for a turned-up nose and a pencil-thin dark mustache that belonged on a prewar movie villain. He was wearing a standard gray suit and plain-toed black shoes, as if he’d just been released from an institution. A bureaucrat turned crime fighter. Carver had met him over and over.

He told Martinson sure, outside was fine, and leaned on his cane and waited. He knew why Martinson was here and wondered what he was going to say. Behind Martinson gulls were circling something out at sea, though Carver couldn’t make out the object of their attention. Their shrill, demanding cries reached him faintly on the breeze.

“The Coast Guard intercepted the
Miss Behavin’
twenty miles off the coast last night,” Martinson said. “Its crew cooperated fully and a thorough search was conducted.” Martinson shrugged and shook his head. “No drugs were found. No kind of contraband. The boat was completely legal.”

Carver stared out at the circling gulls, the morning sun sparking silver off the sea. “Did the crew have a chance to jettison anything when they knew the Coast Guard was closing in for a possible search?”

“Coast Guard says no, but they do admit they can’t be positive about that.”

“Why not? Don’t they have sonar, all that kinda crap?”

“Yeah, but it’s an uncertain world. Hard to be positive about anything.”

Maybe Martinson wasn’t the typical DEA agent at that. “Were there any large wooden crates on board?” Carver asked.

Martinson’s mustache twitched, giving him a wry, man-of-the-world expression. “Crates? No. There was no cargo of any kind. Walter Rainer said the boat had docked at Jurello, a little Mexican coastal town. Said he’d gone there to look over property he might buy. He had a hundred thousand cash in a briefcase. His story is that he speculates in Mexican real estate, usually raw land, buying low by making spot cash offers to desperate owners, then holding the property awhile and reselling at a profit.”

Carver was still looking out to sea. “That’s bullshit,” he said.

“But not bullshit we can disprove,” Martinson pointed out. “And it might even be true.”

“He’d have to deal through a Mexican real estate agent,” Carver said. “The Mexicans are restrictive about Americans doing that kind of business in their country.”

“He gave us a name of a real estate broker in Jurello,” Martinson said. “We’re checking on it.”

“If he gave you a name, it’ll check out. It’s a prearranged cover story.”

“Or it’s simply true.”

“I don’t buy it. If you talked to Walter Rainer, you wouldn’t buy it, either.”

“I’m planning on talking to him,” Martinson said.

“Because he’s rich and his feathers are ruffled?”

“That’ll be how it seems to him, but I want to get an impression of the man, of the setup.”

“Setup’s what it is,” Carver said in disgust.

Martinson frowned at him impatiently. Carver was being difficult. There had been no drugs on board the
Miss Behavin’.
He’d proved out wrong and it didn’t set well with him, and now he was being a pain in the ass. “Look, Mr. Carver, you steered us on to this guy, we stirred up the Coast Guard, got the search conducted, came up empty, and you don’t like it. I don’t blame you, but the fact is that Rainer might be just another eccentric millionaire enjoying himself any way he pleases and it has nothing to do with drug running. You’d be surprised what some people not in the drug trade are doing.”

“No,” Carver said, “I wouldn’t.”

Martinson sighed. “Well, I came by to tell you the results of last night’s party. Now I’m suggesting something—not instructing you, just suggesting. It’d be best if you quit dogging this Rainer character and making trouble for him. He’s got clout and money up the ass, and he can make big trouble back. You keep prodding his hive and you’re going to get stung.”

Carver felt himself getting angry. Not good so early in the morning; it could set a bad tone for the entire day. He stabbed at the ground with his cane as if jabbing something to death. “I was afraid of this.”

“And it’s happened,” Martinson said. “Empty is empty, Mr. Carver. Legal is legal.”

“A hundred thousand in a briefcase. Doesn’t that strike you as a bit odd?”

“Yeah. And odd is odd. And still legal. You better let this one rest, or you might wind up on the nasty end of a court decision.”

“Suppose you search Rainer’s house,” Carver said.

Martinson gave him an exasperated little smile, working his mustache again. “That’s not exactly letting it rest, Mr. Carver. We’ve no solid grounds to obtain a warrant. And frankly, no good reason to think we might find anything incriminating. The boat was clean, the house’ll be just as clean.”

Carver thought Martinson was probably right. “I figure Rainer was transporting drugs in wooden crates,” he said, “and he jettisoned them at sea when he knew the boat might be searched.”

Martinson made a slight motion with his entire body, as if to say sure, that was possible. “So if that’s true you have the satisfaction of having cost Rainer a lot of money.”

Satisfaction again. “No, I suspect there are location transmitters and flotation devices built into the crates and waiting to be triggered, so Rainer can return when its safe and pick the cargo back up at sea.”

“That kind of thing’s been done,” Martinson admitted, “but to tell you the truth, it doesn’t seem likely in this case. I mean there was no sign of drugs
ever
being on that boat. Coast Guard says there’s usually something, even if the boat’s legal at the time of the search. It’s hard to eliminate all traces of that kind of cargo.”

“Hard but not impossible.”

“True, like going to Mars.”

“Rainer’s smart, and he’s got the wherewithal to have the boat gone over after every trip, just in case something like last night happens. He doesn’t wanna invite suspicion.”